I’ve been reading blogs for over four years now, and one of the first blogs I started reading was All Financial Matters. I like it so much that I’ve actually covered for JLP when he’s gone on vacation in the past

What I love about AFM is that it’s all stuff I would never write myself. JLP is a real numbers guy and so he discusses all kinds of investment returns, much of which goes over my head but which is also interesting even if I don’t completely understand it. He even creates his own spreadsheets to illustrate his points. He also discusses investing and investing philosophies (if I recall correctly, he’s an independent certified financial planner). That’s always compelling to me because it’s the area of personal finance that I know the least about.

My Good Cents is one of my favorite deal blogs because Kimberly doesn’t just post the same deals as other deal blogs. In fact, it’s thanks to her that I bought $30 worth of iTunes giftcards for only $25 from Best Buy recently. Another neat thing she does is post cheap fillers that you can find at Amazon to get you over the $25 mark for free super saver shipping.

She also has a weekly schedule for posting that includes a list of sweepstakes to enter on Sundays and a list of sites she made money from online on Mondays.

Just Hungry and Just Bento are two of my favorite food blogs. They are written by Maki, a native of Japan who’s living in Western Europe. The best thing about her blogs is the recipes. Traditional Japanese cooking tends to be time-consuming and complicated, or at least it seems that way. Maki makes Japanese cooking accessible, so that I think, I can do that. For example, her Salmon Furikake is something I make regularly.

Both blogs feature occasional giveaways, and there’s a relatively new forum at Just Bento. Maki also has a site called Hungry for Words, where she teaches some Japanese. Check them all out!

I’m not exactly sure when I “met” Meredith of Like Merchant Ships, but I quickly fell in love with her blog. She’s the sort of gracious, loving person who somehow manages to inspire rather than diminish. And she shares all kinds of wonderful ideas on her blog – crafts, cooking, cleaning, childcare, and more. I particularly love how she creatively stretches her dollars, and how generous she is with them. Who wouldn’t love to be the lucky recipient of gifts like these?

Recently, Meredith ventured into Once-A-Month Cooking. She and Jessie spent six hours putting together 15 recipes (I think it worked out to 30 meals for each of them). She shared her freezer packing strategy at Frugal Hacks, where she writes a weekly column aptly titled “Cheerful Frugality.”

If you don’t know Meredith already, please head over to meet her. She recently moved her domain and resigned her lovely site. She’s also got a handy Tumblr page where she links to favorite articles she’s found throughout the blogosphere.Previously: Meredith interviewed me last year (the podcast no longer seems to be available). One of the things we talked about was the price of eggs, which had been rising quickly at the time – since then, Trader Joe’s has held the price steady at $1.49 per dozen.